Mr. J. Robert Giddings
The University of Texas System
Office of General Counsel
201 West Seventh Street
Austin, Texas 78701-2981

OR99-0924

Dear Mr. Giddings:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under chapter
552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 123158.

The University of Texas (the "university") received a request for "five years of crime reports
on our campus including all incident reports and records of adjudications of cases that went
to disciplinary hearings." The requestor also asks how the university defines the "borders
of [its] campus and other properties that fall under reporting requirements for the 1998
federal campus crime law." You inform us that you will release information responsive to
the latter request. Furthermore, you explain that you will release incident reports that
resulted in a conviction or deferred adjudication, as well as the basic information from all
incident reports. You assert that the remaining requested information is excepted from
disclosure pursuant to sections 552.108 and 552.114 of the Government Code. We have
considered your arguments and reviewed the submitted representative sample of
information.(1)

First, we address your arguments against disclosure under section 552.114 of the
Government Code. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 ("FERPA")
provides that no federal funds will be made available under any applicable program to
an educational agency or institution that releases personally identifiable information
(other than directory information) contained in a student's education records to anyone

but certain enumerated federal, state, and local officials and institutions, unless otherwise
authorized by the student's parent. See 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1). "Education records"
means those records that contain information directly related to a student and are maintained
by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution.
Id. § 1232g(a)(4)(A). This office generally applies the same analysis under section 552.114
and FERPA. Open Records Decision No. 539 (1990).

Section 552.114 excepts from disclosure student records at an educational institution funded
completely or in part by state revenue. Section 552.026 provides as follows:

This chapter does not require the release of information contained in
education records of an educational agency or institution, except in conformity
with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, Sec. 513, Pub. L.
No. 93-380, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g.

In Open Records Decision No. 634 (1995), this office concluded that (1) an educational
agency or institution may withhold from public disclosure information that is protected by
FERPA and excepted from required public disclosure by sections 552.026 and 552.101
without the necessity of requesting an attorney general decision as to those exceptions, and
(2) an educational agency or institution that is state-funded may withhold from public
disclosure information that is excepted from required public disclosure by section 552.114
as a "student record," insofar as the "student record" is protected by FERPA, without the
necessity of requesting an attorney general decision as to that exception. The incident and
arrest reports of state university campus police departments, however, are not education
records for the purposes of FERPA, and such records are not excepted from required public
disclosure by sections 552.026 and 552.114. Open Records Decision No. 612 (1992). We
conclude that the document which you assert is a student record pursuant to section 552.114
must be released because it is a record of the university police department. The record is
not an education record for purposes of FERPA; therefore, it is not excepted from public
disclosure by either section 552.026 or 552.114 and must be released.

Second, we consider your section 552.108 arguments. Section 552.108 of the Government
Code excepts from required public disclosure:

(a) Information held by a law enforcement agency or prosecutor that

deals with the detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime . . . if:

(2) it is information that deals with the detection,

investigation, or prosecution of crime only in relation to an
investigation that did not result in conviction or deferred
adjudication[.]

. . . .

(c) This section does not except from [public disclosure] information

that is basic information about an arrested person, an arrest, or a crime.

You indicate that certain reported incidents did not result in a conviction. We conclude that
you may withhold such incident reports under section 552.108(a)(2). However, we note that
"basic information about an arrested person, an arrest, or a crime" is not excepted from
required public disclosure. Gov't Code § 552.108(c). Basic information is the type of
information that is considered to be front page offense report information even if this
information is not actually located on the front page of the offense report. See generally
Houston Chronicle Publ'g Co. v. City of Houston, 531 S.W.2d 177 (Tex. Civ.
App.--Houston [14th dist.] 1975), writ ref'd n.r.e. per curiam, 536 S.W.2d 559 (Tex. 1976);
Open Records Decision No. 127 (1976). Accordingly, you must release basic information
from all incident reports.

Lastly, you have marked a set of incident reports that you will release to the requestor.
We note that these documents contain information excepted from public disclosure
by sections 552.101 and 552.130 of the Government Code. The social security numbers
in the reports may be confidential if they were obtained or are maintained by the
university police department pursuant to any provision of law, enacted on or after
October 1, 1990. 42 U.S.C. § 405(c)(2)(C)(vii); see Open Records Decision No. 622 (1994).
Section 552.130 excepts information that relates to a motor vehicle operator's or driver's
license or permit issued by an agency of this state or a motor vehicle title or registration
issued by an agency of this state. We have marked the social security numbers and
section 552.130 information that you must withhold.

We are resolving this matter with an informal letter ruling rather than with a published open
records decision. This ruling is limited to the particular records at issue under the facts
presented to us in this request and should not be relied on as a previous determination
regarding any other records. If you have any questions regarding this ruling, please contact
our office.

1. In reaching our conclusion here, we assume that the "representative sample" of records submitted
to this office is truly representative of the requested records as a whole. See Open Records Decision Nos. 499
(1988), 497 (1988). This open records letter does not reach, and therefore does not authorize the withholding
of, any other requested records to the extent that those records contain substantially different types of
information than that submitted to this office.